That Not-So-Thin Line
by IsleofSolitude
Summary: Kate Fuller hates Seth Gecko for being the catalyst to ruin her life.


Disclaimer: I do not own "From Dusk to Dawn".

So this is set after season 1, and could either be canon compliant or divergent depending on how you read it.

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 **That Not-So-Thin Line**

Kate Fuller hates Seth Gecko. To say she didn't would be a lie.

Seth was the one who came up with the plan to kidnap her family to cross the border. Seth was the one who wanted to meet with Carlos. Seth was the one insistent on her family entering that death trap with him. Seth was the one who allowed a brother who was off his rocker call shots, and who protected him no matter what.

She _hates_ him. Kate had never been one for hate, or anger, but now Kate hates a lot of people.

She hates—

-Richie for having the visions that lead to Santanico, who killed a bank teller and made Seth need a different plan, who refused to talk Seth into letting them leave, who saved Seth from capture so many times, for allying with the one who turned her brother

-Her father for forcing them into that rv, for trusting their mother's health to God and not medicine, for being drunk and useless and heart broken when they needed him whole and alert

-Her mother for giving up, for fighting her father, for being such a good actress that no one could see the pain underneath, for causing the car accident and forcing a crisis of faith because she was having her own

-Scott for being so angry and impulsive and trusting an asshole who turned him into a monster, for biting their father and then disappearing

-Tanner for taking away her agency, for treating her as a piece of ass and then protecting her, making her trust him and then betraying her, tying her onto a table to sacrifice her and patronizing her the entire time

-Freddie for not taking her agency from her, for respecting her choice to be the one to drive that stake into her father's heart, for not staying with her father and Scott and preventing the bite that made her choose, for not capturing the Gecko brothers at the hotel, at the border, before madness could reign down on them

-Herself, for fighting with her father at the bar, for being so unable to be in the RV with him a moment longer and deciding to get a damn room at the Dew Drop Inn, for being a good enough driver to not run down Seth when he walked in front of them, for trusting Tanner, trusting the Geckos, for screaming and chasing her brother away, trusting her family, trusting her God, for not being strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to save them, to save herself—

Kate has plenty of hate to go around.

But as she looks at Seth, she knows that hate is only a small part of what she feels for him, for all those she hates.

Seth was not the only catalyst in this experience. All of the pieces were moving before he ever met her. And like all of them, their choices defined him.

She hates Seth. But Seth protected her, time and time again. From the first moment of walking out that hotel room and having a gun pointed in her direction—He had instinctively drawn her out of the path, turning her small frame sideways and shielding her as much as possible—even though tactically it would have been easier for him to get away using her as a hostage. He had done his best to make sure Richie and Scott didn't kill each other in the RV, he had not physically harmed her family.

He had told the strip club doorman to back off, and even thrown a punch to show how serious he was. The criminal showed honor, when he raced backwards, coming back for her and her father and was the last one in the door despite being the fastest. And he was the first one she saw, lying on a table with Mayan zombie vampire whatever priests surrounding her, and it was him whose arm she clutched when they were surrounded.

He had even drawn a gun on Tanner when she said that he hit on her, and the only one who stood between them at that point.

Seth had let her come with him. He could have abandoned her. He lost his family in there too, lost his chance at the future he wanted just like she had, but he did not leave Kate there to find her own way out. Standing in front of a literal Hell, after her family, future, and faith were permanently altered in ways she might never come to terms with, Seth had allowed her to come with him and made her chuckle—chuckle!—when he added "But not in that thing".

And he had taken care of her, taken care with her. He held his pain in check to help Kate with hers. She got the hot showers, the taco with more cheese and filling, and the best of Seth's charm: commentaries and conversation, things that kept her from falling into despair those first few days, when she would close her eyes and remember darkness, when the desert air wasn't choked with blood and she couldn't figure out why the normal was so strange now, after only a few hours of wrongness.

Somewhere between their second bedbug hotel and their second complete shit motel, he began to teach her about guns, about tactical advantage and what to look for. He stole her more laundry and let her pick his brain about everything pre-Titty Twister: lock picking and jail and hot wiring and classic movies and pop culture and the uselessness of plastic sporks because "the ratio is all wrong and it doesn't even work as well as a spoon, Kate!"

They only spoke about the events of Hell once, the first night after they drove for hour after hour after hour and still felt too close to that place. They were raw and fidgeting and the double beds were so tiny and close that it might as well been only one bed in the room. Seth had drawn the curtains and they had both managed a shower to get the memories off them but neither could sleep. Seth had laid on his back, arm behind his head, gun on his stomach held with his other hand. Kate had laid watching him, the meager light casting deep shadows on his face, but she was close enough to see every expression-or rather, lack of one.

In whispers, he had apologized, and had offered up the information that he had lost his brother, not to death only, but that his brother had left him to follow the "stupid vision bitch".

She, in return, had only mentioned that Freddie had helped get her out of it, and that Scott had been turned and her father had died.

She can't talk about the feel of the tablet she almost died on twice, or the way her father's eyes had brightened for the first time in months right before she drove the stake through his skin, or the way Scott had looked her in the eyes, a confused and shocked countenance the last thing she saw before turning away, or the way she still believes that God is still real and with her, and how that is more detrimental to her faith than anything that happened that night.

He rolls over to face her sometime in the night as she talks, and they listen to the not-silence of the night, feeling some comfort from the puff of the other's breath, and in the morning he shows the safety lock on the guns, the way to hold it and stand, and she begins to help him clean and load them.

Weeks later, she has her first and only nightmare. She thinks that it took her that long to fully process, that long to know that the terror is not gone, but it's not here, the terror is now a memory that will live forever in the girl woman person Kate will becomes, it's an experience that alters her forever but it did not last forever it did not steal that light her daddy claimed he saw in her, that purity Tanner and the priests wanted to take from her and give to their gods.

He holds her after she's thrashed in her sleep, holds her even though she's positive she clawed at him before she was fully awake, and he holds her, arms so tight and shoulders so broad that she almost feels safe for the first time since before her mother died. Seth holds her, whispering that he's here and not whispering that it'll be okay because they both know it won't be, and she cries and cries and cries until she is so tired she can sleep again.

They don't mention it.

And when they find themselves sitting closer, in the car or the table or choosing to sit and watch movies on the same bed, they don't mention those things either.

Kate feels hate and anger and absolute _fury_ that she never thought possible, because when you are put through hell you can turn around and try to find the way back to yourself, put yourself through that experience more times than you have to, or you can keep going and find out who you are now.

Hatred is a small darkness, the temporary shadow that surrounds her soul. But Kate doesn't dwell on it, she doesn't nurse it, and it will fade, because that is who Kate is.

Kate Fuller may hate Seth, but there's a light in her that sparks a glow in him.

His light shines, visible in the way he protects her: from culebras and criminals, from the cops and from the perverts, from the elements and from despair. He even protects her from himself, makes himself be gentle when he would be casually cruel or distant. Seth makes sure she eats and steals sunscreen for her when they can't afford it; he expands on what self-defense she knows already, and makes sure Kate can shoot a gun even when the world is buzzing around them.

Seth leans into her touches like they are a miracle—and doesn't laugh when she says just that, just stares at her with his deep deep eyes until her throat goes dry—and days later he dares to return touch for touch.

And slowly, oh so slowly, they keep each other going, small smiles turning to chuckles to laughs, until the pain isn't sharp in their hearts, it's weathered and dull and it hurts but it's not ruining them, it doesn't define them so much as it shaped them.

Kate Fuller hates Seth Gecko, but Kate Fuller loves Seth Gecko more.


End file.
